


Benjamin Franklin Was Wrong

by wisekrakens



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-29
Updated: 2013-09-29
Packaged: 2017-12-27 22:48:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/984519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wisekrakens/pseuds/wisekrakens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>By the time John gets to the jumper bay, Rodney is screeching in three languages about the console's designer, the console's manufacturer, the console's mother, the console's choice in sexual partners, and Benjamin Franklin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Benjamin Franklin Was Wrong

**Author's Note:**

> The American history contained herein is a little spotty. The science is, unfortunately, true.
> 
> This fic was inspired by true events that actually happened.

By the time John gets to the jumper bay, Rodney is screeching in three languages about the console's designer, the console's manufacturer, the console's mother, the console's choice in sexual partners, and Benjamin Franklin.

Benjamin Franklin?

"Wrong wrong wrong wrong WRONG."

Yeah, but Benjamin Franklin?

"I don't care if he founded the god damn Federation, he's WRONG. SO WRONG."

"He fell out of the wrong tree and hit every wrong branch on the way down?" John drawls, hitting ten out of the twelve pitches that he knows, from extensive experimentation, will make Rodney flip his shit.

"His wrongness can be seen from space?" whispers one of the small complement of spectating Marines. Everyone but Rodney smiles; Will and Grace has been a popular download on the intranet since the last Daedalus run.

There are eight seasons.

"Yes!" Rodney snaps. Well, he might have snapped; since his entire upper half is hidden beneath a jumper console, all John gets to judge his snappishness by is a violent jerk of the legs and a solid _thump_ that means Rodney may have just smashed the back end of a screwdriver into priceless Ancient circuitry. "So wrong!"

John mulls this over for a little bit. Rodney was supposed to meet him and Teyla and Ronon for lunch -- not because they're one of _those_ gate teams (okay, they kind of are) but because Teyla had just gotten back from an extended stay on New Athos, and John had just finagled his way out of the infirmary, and keeping up with one's friends is one of the rare occurrences of being in charge of a large number of people. But Rodney didn't show up at their usual table at the usual time, so John just had to go look for him before he settled down to lunch, so John's ability to think is being slowly devoured by his stomach instead of happily sopping up the juices of roasted New Lantean almost-deer, and the only thing he can recall about Benjamin Franklin is the thing with the key and the kite and the thunderstorm.

"Yes," John hazards, since he's fairly sure jumper consoles have little to do with keys and kites. "Terribly wrong."

"I know!" There's a bigger thump that suggests Rodney has now smashed his forehead into the console. "I mean, it was before the whole 'electron' thing, so I can't hold it against him, it's a natural mistake to make, but it was _grandfathered in_. By the smartest --" Rodney chokes on his words. "It's WRONG!" he finally bellows, and several of the spectating Marines snicker.

John sighs very quietly and looks around for help. Radek sits in the back of a jumper not too far away, stylus clicking away against a game of Solitaire, and John tries to beckon him over with his eyebrows.

Radek looks up, sighs, looks back down, sighs again, pauses his game, stands up, and slinks over.

"It is electricity," he says. "Current through a circuit is defined as from positive to negative, but electrons actually move in the other direction."

"YES!" Rodney bellows, and everyone who'd taken his attention away from the pair of boots stacked on top of the pilot's chair jumps. Rodney has remarkably good hearing for someone who spends so much time shouting. "It makes no logical sense! And since the Ancients did things the other way, the right way, I have to carry the negative through when I work with their schematics and -- WRONG! So WRONG!"

It's about here that John starts to sense a tipping point. He can pull Rodney out of this jumper, out of the jumper bay, and down into the mess to chew the meat of the almost-deer alarmingly enthusiastically. Or he could goad him on.

John would flip a coin, but he already knows which one he'd prefer. It's got nothing to do with keys and kites.

"I dunno, Rodney," he drawls, hitting the two pitches he'd missed the first time and recovering six others, just for good measure. Radek makes a break for his tablet. "Ben Franklin was a pretty smart guy. He was a Founding Father. He wrote the Declaration of Independence."

Rodney hits another body part against the underside of the console. "You've gotta be kidding me!" he screeches. "He did not -- Is the American public school system really that bad, that you think Ben Franklin wrote -- It was Jefferson! Thomas Jefferson! And he was wrong! Oh so wrong!"

"His wrongness can be seen from space," John mutters, grinning. "Thomas Jefferson was wrong?" he calls back to Rodney.

If the spectating Marines had been able to find popcorn, they would've started munching on it. They'd finished Will and Grace weeks ago.

"Oh my god, yes! In so many ways! Americans and their founding fathers, I swear to god. They were human! They retained the capacity to be wrong! Especially about electricity! Who flies a kite in a storm on _purpose_ , it's like walking around wearing a Please Shoot Me With A Million Volts sign --"

"Rodney," John drawls, aiming to shake Rodney out of his rant. "Rodney," he tries again when the first one doesn't work. "You're scaring the Marines."

Which is, of course, not true; the Marines had recently been in a midnight three way shootout with both Wraith and Genii, and it's a little difficult to be scared of a screeching pair of boot soles after that happens. But they like John, and they know John knows they're not scared, and they'd all finished Will and Grace weeks ago. By consensus, they get very, very quiet, because they know the punchline is coming.

"IT'S WRONG!"

The Marines fall all over themselves laughing.

Ronon comes into the jumper bay on cat feet. He can't help it, he swears; it's habit not to make noise. "No one was in the mess," he says, by way of explanation. "What'd I miss?"

"BENJAMIN FRANKLIN BEING WRONG!"

Ronon blinks and waits. "What?"

"Uh..." John waves his hands around in a gesture approximating 'I don't know' and 'he was like this when I got here'. "Something about electricity being wrong."

"The positive to negative thing?" Ronon says. "Yeah, I hate that."

Half of the Marines are shocked into silence; the other half laugh harder. John doesn't know this, because he's been stuck in the infirmary with a bullet in his thigh for the last two weeks, but Ronon's had a lot of down time lately. And with that down time, he's chosen to continue the education that had been interrupted by Sateda's war with the Wraith. He's about halfway through Rodney's old physics textbook.

After a brief pause, punctuated by the sound of a screwdriver digging splinters of old crystal out of their metal housing, Rodney shouts, "THANK YOU."


End file.
